In one of his final films before leaving us in 2019, cult favorite Sid Haig plays Big Daddy, a professional weed farmer whose sprawling pot plantation is infiltrated by an ambitious young female undercover cop who becomes one of his harem of lovely farm hands in the seriously unhinged thriller HIGH ON THE HOG (2019).
This is against the wishes of her superior, the pushy and perpetually plastered Agent Dick (Joe Estevez, CAESAR AND OTTO'S SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE), who feels her too inexperienced for such a mission but would love to get Big Daddy and his "family" in his sights or at least send them all to the slammer no matter what it takes.
Meanwhile, a virulent new strain of weed has hit town that has those who smoke it going on pleasantly cinematic homocidal rampages and generally acting like gibbering maniacs.
Haig (JASON OF STAR COMMAND, CYNTHIA, MIMESIS) settles into the role of Big Daddy with a long-practiced ease and makes us root for him despite the fact that his easygoing fascade hides a very dangerous inner being. Estevez (who is, incidentally, Martin Sheen's brother) has a field day in the role of Agent Dick and the more outrageous his violent, drunken cop character becomes, the more I was rooting for him as well.
There's plenty of drama with Dick clashing with his female boss in addition to informers and various perps, not to mention the very imposing Robert Z'Dar as a smalltown mayor who aids and abets Big Daddy. Add to this the female undercover cop's increasingly dangerous mission, Big Daddy's bloodthirsty bodyguard, and lots of violence including a climactic gun battle.
Mostly, however, prolific filmmaker Tony Wash (SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET, IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL DIE IF I WANT TO) uses this simple plot as a means to indulge himself in some of the wildest stream-of-consciousness filmmaking I've ever seen.
It's as though he watched NATURAL BORN KILLERS and PLANET TERROR before dropping acid and then filming whatever came blasting out of his thoroughly blown mind.
Indeed, the grindhouse look of PLANET TERROR and the mish-mash of film styles and elements that made NATURAL BORN KILLERS such an unpredictable visual patchwork seem almost reserved in comparison to Wash's turning the dial up to eleven and beyond.
The result is a constantly dazzling party for the eyes and mind in which the story of blustery Agent Dick and the imperiled undercover cop's dogged efforts to bust Big Daddy's operation is splattered with superimposed cinematic frou-frou.
This includes scratches and aging effects, film leaders, "scene missing" tags, overexposed film, live-action characters turning into stop-motion figures, and almost literally everything else that could be thrown into the mix.
Many will consider this a superficial and overly self-indulgent attempt to make an average story seem more interesting and entertaining to watch, and perhaps it is. But if that's the case, then, for me at least, it worked. And one thing's for sure--the people who put HIGH ON THE HOG together clearly had a ball doing it.
Buy it from Indican Pictures
TECH SPECS
Runtime: 85 minutes
Format: 1:85 Flat
Sound: Dolby SR
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Action, Crime, Alternative
1 comment:
Thanks to Sid, I feel connected to horror fans. There's part of my first novel that was heavily influenced by the short time I spent with him.
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